Research, ideas, and leadership for a more secure, peaceful world

Past Event
Seminar

AI Cyber Lunch: "Beyond Deliberation: Deepening Participation with AI"

Open to the Public

Over the past decade, various forms of representative, small group conversations—known collectively as sortition—have gained in global popularity. Those willing to participate are selected from among a larger sample of the population to meet offline or on for informed policy conversations. Now AI companies, too, are staging these civic dialogues in the hope of appearing more responsive to public input. 

In this AI Cyber Lunch, Beth Noveck, Professor of Experiential AI and Director of the Burnes Center for Social Change at Northeastern University, will discuss how AI could help us fashion better deliberation and more powerful forms of democratic engagement. Q&A to follow. Buffet-style lunch will be served.

Registration: No RSVP is required. Room capacity is limited and seating will be on a first come, first served basis. All are welcome to attend virtually via Zoom. Virtual attendees should register using the button below; upon registering, attendees will receive a confirmation email with a Zoom link.

Recording: Please be advised that this seminar will not be recorded. The event organizers prohibit any attendees, including journalists, from audio/visual recording or distributing parts or all of the event program without prior written authorization.

Accessibility: To request accommodations or for questions about access, please contact Liz Hanlon (ehanlon@hks.harvard.edu) in advance of the session.

Date: Time: - Location: Rubenstein Building - David T. Ellwood Democracy Lab, Room 414AB
Beth Noveck

Speaker

Beth Simone Noveck is a professor at Northeastern University, where she directs the Burnes Center for Social Change and its partner project, The GovLab. She is faculty at the Institute for Experiential AI, School of Law, and in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities, the College of Arts, Design, and Media, the College of Engineering, and affiliated faculty at the Khoury College of Computer Sciences. 

Beth’s work focuses on using AI to reimagine participatory democracy and strengthen governance.

Among her many civic technology projects, she created Unchat, one of the first online platforms for democratic engagement, and Peer-to-Patent to connect scientists to policymakers to improve the patent process. Two decades before the Metaverse, she built Democracy Island in Second Life.  

Previously, Beth served in the White House as the first United States Deputy Chief Technology Officer under President Obama. She founded the White House Open Government Initiative, which created policies and platforms, such as data.gov and challenge.gov, for making the federal government more transparent, participatory, and collaborative. In 2020, Beth designed Ask a Scientist to crowdsource answers to COVID questions.

In 2024, Governor Murphy appointed her as Chief AI Strategist for the State of New Jersey. Previously, she served as the State’s founding Chief Innovation Officer.

In addition to her current courses on AI for Impact, Beth is the founder of open, online courses such as Solving Public Problems for social innovators in over 100 countries, Open Justice for legal innovators, and InnovateUS for public sector professionals. The author of three earlier books, Beth’s newest book is Democracy Rebooted: Unleashing the Power of AI. 
 

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